Wild Pink brings it back to basics with ‘Dulling the Horns’

For years in Wild Pink, John Ross crafted ever-expanding albums that married big, conceptual ideas to increasingly ornate arrangements, culminating in ILYSM, from 2022, on which he wrangled with the impacts of his cancer diagnosis, joined in the process by a flotilla of collaborators who helped him to construct gorgeous, complex musical arrangements that he said he struggled in translating for the stage.

As a result, Ross entered into the recording of Dulling the Horns, from 2024, intent on stripping things back, doing the bulk of the initial writing while touring behind ILYSM. “We were on a tour with New Pornographers, and we started working on some of these songs during soundchecks,” said Ross, who will join Wild Pink in concert at Rumba Cafe on Wednesday, March 5, supported by Columbus duo the Receiver. “I think coming out of the record before, ILYSM, there was such a different attitude and mindset toward the song, where I just wanted to write something that was more enjoyable to perform. I was pursuing ideas and not really concerning myself with where they might end up.”

The resulting album finds Ross and Co. leaning into stripped-down, effortlessly propulsive heartland rock. Opener “The Fences of Stonehenge” sets the tone, Ross locking into a thick-bodied, semi-wooly guitar riff that serves as the driving force for nearly every song that follows. Lyrically, however, the singer-songwriter counters the comparatively straightforward music with some of his most oblique words to date, which he described in part as a byproduct of not writing in service of some larger theme. “The song ideas and the lyrics came a lot easier on this record, and there wasn’t some bigger picture as to what the record was about,” he said. “I think on the whole the songwriting process just felt a whole lot less serious than the record before, and it was certainly more enjoyable for me.”

Despite the seemingly random approach – one song recalls Ross’ first visit to Stonehenge, while another finds him ruminating on the late-career years that Michael Jordan spent as a member of the Washington Wizards – there are certain through lines that begin to develop, particularly related to the ways so-called modern conveniences can serve to obscure the greater wonders still present in our world.

On “Rung Cold,” for one, Ross appears to pine for the days when we weren’t perpetually attached to our work lives by a pocket-sized device (“Now every time the phone rings I shake/Claustrophobic in a wide-open space”). “Fences of Stonehenge,” in turn, arrived as the musician reflected back on a trip to the mysterious formation during which he struggled with the various ways the site had been turned into a tourist trap, littered with barricades and gift shops and existing at some distance “from whatever the Druids or whoever made them had intended.”

“I was anticipating being blown away by the site, and it was still incredible, but it was all overshadowed by how much it bad been bastardized, and how far in the wrong direction we’ve come,” he said. 

Similar ideas surface in “Eating the Egg Whole,” which Ross began sketching out after viewing the Jordan documentary “The Last Dance,” and which he said lingers on everything from the reality that nothing lasts forever to the various anxieties given rise by our perpetual need to doomscroll. “But my stupid ass is always searching,” he sings as the song draws to a close. “Hoping for a pearl when I open up my fist.”

“I don’t know the science behind it, but [social media] seems designed to light up a part of your brain, and it seems designed to be addictive, which I think is pretty insidious,” Ross said. “And it’s not impossible to avoid, but you have to go to some pretty extreme lengths in order to avoid it. It just has this way of creeping into your life.”

Other songs, though, remain nebulous, including “Catholic Dracula,” which has roots in both the musician’s Catholic upbringing – “That was such a formative time in my life,” said Ross, who has since grown distant from the church – and his long-held fondness for Dracula. Even so, the tune remains to some degree impenetrable even to the man who wrote it.

“I still don’t really know what that song is about, exactly,” said Ross, who continues to embrace the sense of mystery with which the music can still emerge. “And I always find it a good sign when that happens.”